Quidditch practice, as always, was set and canceled by the weather, and Neville spent many evenings helping Professor Sprout with fussy or simply numerous plants that didn't seem to be maturing on any weekly schedule. They'd decided to meet irregularly to begin with. The downside to this was that after Ron and Hermione's spat, Harry missed the chance to use several good evenings over the weeks on their DADA study. Hermione had to be headed off at specific times if he wanted to see her at all, Ron wanted to complain or just hang out every morning and lunch break that he wasn't wrapped around someone, and Harry remained committed to keeping the private studying a private secret.

Neville, for his part, had migrated to an empty seat next to Luna. They were a pair of smiles and peaceful conversation. Harry saw Seamus and even the occasional ex-DA member join them some days. Ron eventually caught him staring across the hall.

"What were you and Neville talking about anyway?"

"Nothing," he said.

"With Neville? That lines up."

Harry narrowed his eyes, but Ron just rolled his own.

"What then, he tell you about plants? The lastest thing that's got him nervous? I'm just saying, not much of a laugh, is he?" Ron's tone was casual.

Harry's past year had been a little brighter thanks to how thoroughly pleasant people like Luna and Neville were. "He laughs a lot more than you these days."

"Not what I meant."

"He's my friend."

"I know he's nice, and I know what he did at the ministry," Ron said quickly. "He's just not interesting."

"Would he be more interesting if he went around making snide remarks about people behind their backs?"

"We do that all the time. I mean look at Malfoy. Git," he said pointedly, "but when someone hexes him-or just VEXES him-he gets the whole school laughing at them-"

"-you mean US-"

"Or he duels them in the hall, way more productive than keeping his head down. At least it's exciting."

Harry spent their first period ignoring Ron's side commentary after this. By second period with Flitwick working them to the bone he grudgingly remembered where Ron was coming from; it took all of his self control not to lean over and share every scathing remark he had about the instructions on duplication charms.

So Neville was more likely to speak plainly, or at least describe his day without using sarcasm. (Had he ever heard Neville say something sarcastic?) That wasn't a bad thing, if not always what Harry had been looking for when Snape had tossed out his fish scales twice and made him waste the class boiling them again. But Neville was honest, and maybe, he thought, as he watched Hermione working alone on the other side of every classroom they were in, maybe that could be better than being a laugh.

/

Since Neville finally believed he could cast nonverbally, he improved as rapidly as Harry had expected. He silently used the shield charm in his own defence during Snape's excuse for a class. It had been several chaotic months, but Snape moved on, and Harry was no longer needed.

This was slightly disappointing, but Neville still grinned at him across the room whenever one of them knocked Malfoy over and Harry beamed back.

After too many weeks Harry ditched Ron without a word and accosted Neville in the hall.

"Look who's," he punched Neville lightly on the arm, one fist after another and again, "the master of the shield charm!"

"What. What is that." Neville was smiling up to his eyes even as he pulled away from the contact. "What are you doing."

It was as good an excuse to talk to him as any. "Sorry I haven't-"

"You'll get yours, blood traitors!"

Malfoy was glaring straight down the hall as he blew past them. They froze with their wands half out and watched him stomp off to another classroom.

"It's like he's not even trying anymore," said Neville in amazement.

"Must have his mind on something else," Harry replied darkly, shamefully aware his major theories were only as likely as the possibility that Malfoy feared Neville's haphazard approach to dueling.

"Weird. So, when did you want to meet up?" he asked brightly.

Harry opened his mouth in surprise, then closed it and thought fast. "We don't have quidditch tomorrow, how about then?"

"Works for me," Neville told him cheerfully and walked ahead.

They were still going to work together. Harry would need to come up with good material, but Neville still wanted to spend time with him.

/

Neville's ward thing was now so strong they had to ask McGonagall for help getting rid of it. She taught Harry a sort of lightning spell that did the trick, on top of feeling cooler and more useful than anything they'd picked up from Snape directly.

Harry toyed with spell canceling, but he had a pile of other homework to focus on and his study partner already had it down. Neville could now remove most damage they were capable of with even a nonverbal cast. This left them more room than ever for actual dueling. Harry had never actually learned how to block before and found himself learning more in their meet ups than he did in some of his classes. Neville made for a deeply unpredictable opponent, since he used various spells in place of stuns or disarms. He also never managed to aim the same way twice.

Even better, Neville's persistent fear of Snape was finally transforming into anger. "I hate those bloody pictures he put up on the wall," Neville complained one evening while they squinted at a written assignment. Based on the root and command, describe the expected effects of the following curses. Nasotendus, Exterreri Premit. . . "He makes me face the Cruciatus one whenever he can."

Harry nodded solemnly, skimming through a Latin dictionary from the library. "He's evil."

They didn't get to practice anything interesting that time. The assignment would've gone quicker if they'd tested some of the damn spells out on Goyle instead of figuring out what obscure conjugation of the actual root(or was it the command they were conjugating?) they were using, but Neville told him off for suggesting they mess around with random curses. Knowing Snape, at least one of them would be horrid anyway. As he dug the Maurauders' Map out of his trunk that night, Harry found an old photograph and got an idea.

/

"Here, Neville, take a look at this."

Neville looked at him with confusion as he took it, then down to the photograph. Imminently, he scrunched up his face. "Is that you?"

"What? No, that's my dad." He resisted the urge to start pointing and explaining.

"Oh, okay." He spent several long seconds being pensive over the photo. When his eyes stayed in one spot long enough, Harry knew he had seen, and waited impatiently.

"Those-are my parents," he said quietly. "Before."

The word was self explanatory. "Yeah," Harry said. "This was the Order of the Phoenix."

Neville looked him in the eye, evidently aware there was going to be an explanation now.

"They fought Voldemort together," Harry said proudly. "They worked for Dumbledore, they were the last and best resistance there was." He left out the colorful stories Moody had added when presenting the picture to him.

"Our parents knew each other?"

"They did."

Neville's eyes drifted back over the picture. "That's Professor Lupin. And more of our teachers. . .and that man, he was Amelia Bones' brother, the one the Death Eaters killed. This was why?"

Harry winced at Neville's inquiring look. "A bunch of them didn't make it."

"I never knew. . .about them all working together," Neville said in awe. "I mean, my parents were aurors. Somehow I thought other people looked out for their families and, I dunno, voted or something. Gran always talks about back then like it was politics and people getting assassinated."

"A lot of it is, I guess," Harry mused. "We've had plenty of that already."

Neville stared at him with interest. "What did the Order do?"

"They fought-"

"How? There weren't enough of them to just fight."

Harry wrinkled his forehead. "They worked with information, mostly? They spied on Voldemort's ministry spies, they kept track of what and who he had to work with, searched for weaknesses Voldemort himself could have, kept" -he thought of his parents taking him into hiding-"anything that could give him an advantage guarded."

"Are you in the Order?"

"Of course not, I'm-" Neville's expression startled him. With horror, he remembered seeing the same determination from him maybe six months ago in the Department of Mysteries.

"So it's still on? With Lupin and Moody and new people, I know Nymphadora Tonks is an auror," Neville blurted out fast.

"Er." Harry had not meant to incriminate the Order, but he'd also forgotten that Lupin and Moody had both shown themselves working very extracurricularly for Dumbledore at the ministry last spring. Did he want to tell Neville? Didn't he have as much right to know as anyone else about to come of age?

Just as suddenly, Neville dropped it. He opened Confronting the Faceless, annoyed. "So, what did you want to look at? The book has some interesting ideas about how to use gripping charms for protection, but they're not very strong. . ."

/

Harry dreams he's in the astronomy tower. Norbert was supposed to meet him for a balloon ride but Neville runs in to tell him Dawlish is coming. You told me to come here, says dream Neville. No I didn't, I was here for Norbert and he left without me, we'll get detention at the ministry if we're caught, says dream Harry. I want to be here and I won't leave dream Neville tells him. Harry is terrified by how good it feels.

/

The Weasleys were overjoyed to have Harry for the winter holidays. Before Christmas he ended up on a couch next to Lupin, who had told him about life with the werewolves and looked as morose as Harry was beginning to feel.

"Lupin, in the Order. . .how often is everyone prepared to die?"

Lupin shot him a startled look, and replied seriously. "Death is never something to approach lightly, Harry. We don't risk each other's lives on a whim."

When Harry didn't respond, he continued. "We know what we're up against when we join, and we're careful about who gets in at all. There are plenty of causes in this war that are worth the danger of fighting for, but that's all the more reason to keep ourselves and our friends alive."

"Right," Harry replied weakly.

"Is there anything that brought this on?" Lupin's voice was full of concern as he leaned closer.

Harry paused before deciding he could share this with Lupin. "At the Department of Mysteries. . . Neville was different than usual."

"How do you mean?"

"He got his face dented in and it just made him more aggressive. You saw what he was like at school," Harry recalled Snape confronting Lupin about Neville, "someone makes a joke about him and he gets scared. But he gets attacked by Death Eaters and suddenly he's. . .

"Before the Order showed up, it was just the two of us left with the worst of Voldemort's people. I told him to stay with the others while I drew them off but he burst in after me. He couldn't even cast anything, his voice was messed up. They grabbed him, and. . ."

Suddenly it felt too horrible to admit. That Neville was tortured by the same witch that ruined his parents' lives, with the same curse, because he had followed Harry. He hadn't actually talked to anyone about it before now and found he couldn't say it. Was it easy to assume? This filled him with dread.

"The Death Eaters said they'd kill him if I didn't give them the prophecy," Harry continued quietly.

"That was an extraordinarily painful situation to be in," Lupin reassured him, "anyone would be terrified."

"It was like Neville wasn't even afraid. He just kept yelling for me not to hand over the prophecy. I don't even know how well he understood what was going on but," Harry went on quickly, "I think he was ready to die."

Lupin had no immediate response. He seemed to be considering this.

"I've never gotten anyone done like that, even Ron and Hermione, we were in danger, we risked our lives but I've never had anyone, used like that." Even Ginny had been asleep, he thought, not awake and screaming for him not to save her. Bellatrix hadn't had a use for Neville, even, she just made him hurt.

Lupin watched him carefully. "It was hideous, what was done to Neville's parents."

Harry looked down in shame. Lupin knew.

"You didn't get anyone 'done,' Harry. The Death Eaters are cruel of their own volition."

"If I had handed over the prophecy, would they have hurt him anyway?"

"That would be the most likely outcome."

Harry's stomach dropped through to the floor. "If you hadn't shown up. . ."

"We did, and it ended the way it ended. Neville remains whole in body and mind."

The word "whole" chafed Harry, who narrowed his eyes at Lupin. Lupin dithered.

"I mean he may not have gone mentally unscathed, but he is able to live a normal life. As are you, despite the pain you have seen and experienced."

Harry knew and didn't care for what "normal" meant here. "You're plenty whole yourself."

Lupin's eyebrows furrowed as he smiled down in response. Harry knew an adult's condescension when he saw it.